Shake Shack's Danny Meyer Explains the One Bet He Wishes He'd Made

I'm not wired to care about getting the last nickel out of somebody. In my early twenties, when I was living by myself in New York, I was a salesman earning commission, and I believe I was the leading salesperson in the company for three consecutive years. But I'm not a good negotiator. It's just not who I am. I'm much more interested in getting more quality than I am in getting a lower price.

"Things" don't really do it for me. I wear a thirty-nine-dollar Timberland watch that I've had for about eight years. I love experiences, like traveling and staying in nice hotels and going to good restaurants. But I just don't buy a lot of things. On the other hand, I feel good when people in my life have those things.

My family was never flashy. My maternal grandfather always had a Pontiac or a Buick when he could've sprung for something more expensive. During college, a friend and I spent a summer working for him in Chicago, and we were living in an apartment of his. It was a really, really hot summer, and we left the air conditioner on all day in the apartment. When he got the bill from our first month, he told us how wasteful that was. His actions taught me not to be flagrant in any respect. But I always wanted to live the way I wanted to live without someone else telling me what I could and couldn't do. I never liked having to ask my parents for money, and I always wanted to earn my own so that I could make my own choices.

I always wanted to live the way I wanted to live without someone else telling me what I could and couldn't do.

I don't want to see it going out; I just want to take responsibility for it coming in. My wife pays all the bills. She'll just go, "You don't want to know." And I'm actually completely fine not knowing. She works very, very hard at that, and I so appreciate it. You could underline the word so about five times.

I want to always have enough to give. The whole concept of enough is absolutely related to love, because at the end of the day, what is money? Money is a currency with which you can buy security. You can put a roof over your head, you can put food in your belly, and both of those things, or the absence of those things, are connected to love. There's just no question about it. And to me, money is like a hug—the more you give, the more you get.

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There were two occasions when my father had to tell all of us that his business had filed for bankruptcy. One in my early teens and one in my very early thirties. Those two experiences have colored my sense of "enough." I have taken many risks as an entrepreneur, but I've been careful and sensible about those risks, always wanting to have, you know, "enough." It's fueled by having watched my dad, on two occasions, run out. I get anxious if our car has less than half a tank of gas—my wife can easily take it down to the point where the red light goes on.

I wish I'd had the foresight to invest in real estate around Madison Square Park. I don't have any regrets about it, but it would've been a nice bet to make, after investing my time and work and dollars and love, along with many others, into helping restore Eleven Madison Park and then establishing Shake Shack. Some of the success of Union Square Cafe over thirty years and the corresponding investment in the neighborhood helped price us out of our own space, because we didn't own it.

To me, money is like a hug—the more you give, the more you get.

I don't like to go to the bank, and so I like to have enough—there's that word again. So that if I'm going to go get a haircut, like I'm going to do today, I have enough money to tip the barber, or enough to grab a quick coffee. I do use a credit card more often than not, but I don't ever want to be caught without cash, because you just never know. Also, we have four kids, and among the things you never know is which of the kids is going to need something. Right now, I have $331 in my wallet.

I'll be damned if I'm going to let my kids spend six dollars on a bottle of water from a minibar. We can be staying in a really nice hotel—and Lord knows what I'm spending per night—but that's just not right. You say, "That's insane! You wouldn't have noticed if they had charged six dollars more per night on the room." And that's true. But I just don't like being had.

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